August 2013 Quickies

Tenchi the Movie: Tenchi in Love (Not Rated)

My August was utterly miserable, and even by the end of the month when I was stable enough to sit through a movie without breaking down into tears, I was still distracted as fuck and these two quickies aren't going to be as well thought out as they should be. Maybe I should just point you to FO's capsule reviews, though in my case I was watching this film for the first time as a massive cynic. Although that mostly manifested in having trouble accepting some of the technology, like when when characters keep pulling out a net that that stops Tenchi from disappearing from space and I just have to figure, okay, I guess they can do that in this world? And getting annoyed by movies using a timer to create tension. Okay, I know the gang only has so much time to beat KAIN before Washu's time shield wears off and everybody vanishes into the new timeline. But I also know they're going to pull it off with one second remaining, and that the counter isn't going to advance in real time.

Rating:

Tenchi the Movie 2: The Daughter of Darkness (Not Rated)

AKA, The Tenchi Muyo Christmas Special. Oh, it's not as cheesy as your typical Christmas special where Garfield spends the day with Jon's creepy family. But the whole thing revolves around Christmas and trees and toys that seem to be channeling Akira and a scene where a mass of giant holiday streamers attack Tenchi and Ryoko. And while I haven't seen any of the series, the animation came across as more TV-ish than the first movie, and I imagine some things would have made more sense if I was familiar with the show (what's a "tree of darkness"?)

Okay, I'm sure it wasn't intended as a Christmas special and I'm just grabbing at straws here, and that's probably why it's a lot more effective than watching Captain Picard and the rest of the USS Enterprise fend off aliens that happen to look like the Grinch. And as twisted as Yuzuha was, I still felt way more sorry for her at the end than Skeletor learning the true meaning of Christmas.

Although I could have done without the scene where Mayuka starts trying to rape Tenchi.